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Fireballs

Fireball 5

Iowa impact crater confirmed

Sara E. Pratt
EarthMagazine
Sun, 07 Jul 2013 14:23 UTC
Iowa Crater
© Adam Kiel, U.S. Geological Survey
An airborne geophysical survey has confirmed the discovery of an impact crater under the town of Decorah in northeastern Iowa.
An airborne geophysical survey mapping mineral resources in the Midwest has confirmed that a 470-million-year-old impact crater nearly five times the size of Barringer (Meteor) Crater in Arizona lies buried several hundred meters beneath the town of Decorah, Iowa.

The crater's existence was first hypothesized in 2008 when geologists examining cuttings from water wells drilled near the town were surprised to find evidence of a previously unknown shale deposit. When geologist Robert McKay from the Iowa Geological Survey investigated further, he found something even more surprising: The shale deposit was nearly a perfect circle, roughly 5.5 kilometers across. Further analysis of sub-shale breccias by Bevan French, a geologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, revealed shocked quartz - a telltale sign of an impact. Together, the evidence added up to an exciting possibility: the existence of a previously unknown impact crater in the Midwest.

Earlier this year, more evidence accumulated when scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Iowa and Minnesota Geological Surveys conducted a high-resolution geophysical survey of the region to assess water resources and mineral resources. They were specifically mapping the Northeast Iowa Igneous Intrusive complex, which lies in the Midcontinent Rift System that formed about 1.1 billion years ago, and may contain valuable copper, nickel and platinum group metal resources.
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Fireball 2

Covering up the celestial threat yet again: Boom! goes the mystery?

Braley Dodson
The Daily Republic
Sat, 15 Jun 2013 15:24 UTC
Little-known military flight area might be cause of noise reports
Image

The Lake Andes Military Operations Area is shown in the lower right portion of this map taken from a report on the website of the Department of Defense’s Environment, Safety and Occupational Health Network and Information Exchange.

Some Mitchell-area residents were in a state of bewilderment last Saturday night after hearing a loud boom.

Though definitive information is scant, the boom could have been from a jet flying at supersonic speeds through a little-known military operations area.

The boom was heard around 11 p.m. and spawned calls to law enforcement officials in Mitchell and Mount Vernon, who did not determine a cause for the noise.

The National Weather Service office in Sioux Falls reported rain that night, but not much thunder. A lightning strike would be heard as a boom nearby where it hit, but would sound like a rumble from farther away.

Davison County Chief Deputy Steve Harr heard dispatchers discuss calls they received about a big boom. He heard reports of people who heard it in Mitchell, Mount Vernon and five miles northwest of Mount Vernon.

"This was a first for me," Harr said.

The noise may have been a sonic boom created by a jet flying faster than the speed of sound. The speed of sound varies with altitude and temperature, but is about 770 mph. The sonic boom would travel with the aircraft. Because the speed of sound can constantly change, it is possible to unintentionally break it.

The jet may have been flying through the Lake Andes Military Operations Area, an airspace used by the military for simulated air combat and complex missions, and practice maneuvers. It is the only such military operations area in the state, other than a small portion of the Powder River military air space in Montana and Wyoming that juts into South Dakota's northwest corner.
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Fireball 3

More cosmic fireworks with mass demonstrations, this time in Cairo


Sott.net
Fri, 05 Jul 2013 14:55 UTC
meteor egypt
© Screenshot YouTube
Is it just a coincidence that fireballs were filmed over Cairo and Sao Paulo/Rio de Janeiro as mass demonstrations peaked in Egypt on July 2nd, and Brazil on June 18th, 2013?

Check it out at 11 seconds... sure looks like a meteor/fireball to us.

      Read More...
Fireball

Covering up the celestial threat again: "Sonic boom" shakes homes in Nantucket, Massachusetts

Jason Graziadei
The Inquirer and Mirror
Thu, 20 Jun 2013 14:17 UTC
Image
A powerful noise believed to be a sonic boom from a passing aircraft swept over Nantucket Wednesday night, shaking houses and rattling the nerves of island residents in mid-island neighborhoods and areas of the south shore.

The incident was reported around 9:45 p.m. Wednesday night by many island residents who took to social-media sites to describe the loud noise that shook their homes and ask if others had experienced the same thing.

While the suspected culprit is a military aircraft that broke the sound barrier over the island, there was no definitive confirmation of the specific source of the noise.

Nantucket Memorial Airport tower manager Patrick Topham stated in a message "we have no confirmation as to what caused it at this point. We have to assume that it was a sonic boom caused by a military aircraft."

Nantucket police lieutenant Jerry Adams stated the source of the noise was a "sonic jet."

A similar incident occurred several months ago on the evening of Wednesday, March 21, when Nantucket residents reported a loud noise that shook houses.

Comment: A sonic boom from a military jet does not cause houses to shake...

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Meteor

Meteor strike: Investigating a cosmic crime scene

Jeffrey Kluger
Time
Wed, 26 Jun 2013 14:09 UTC
Image
© Youtube
A meteorite causes panic as it falls in the Ural Mountains region of Russia, Feb. 2013.
A new video tells the tale of an unlikely bit of astronomical forensics.

Is there anything sneakier than an asteroid? They run silent, run deep and run very, very fast - hurtling toward Earth from any point in the vast bowl of the sky at speeds that can exceed 40,000 mph (64,000 k/h). They typically whiz right past us or plunge harmlessly and spectacularly into the atmosphere, burning up before they hit the ground - unless, of course, they explode in the sky or collide with the surface, leaving a massive footprint of destruction for miles around.

Asteroids - or, in their atmospheric incarnations, meteors or meteorites - don't do that kind of damage very often anymore, perhaps once every 70 to 100 years on average.


Comment: This may change very soon, as Earth is facing an imminent cosmic threat.


But when they do, they can spell big trouble. You could ask the folks living in the Tunguska region of Russia in 1908, where a 330 ft. (100 m) rock exploded in the sky one morning, flattening trees in an 830 sq. mi. (2,150 sq. km) radius. You could ask the dinosaurs - if they weren't all dead of course, thanks to a 6 mi. (10 km) rock that struck off the Yucatan 65 million years ago, throwing up a sky darkening debris screen that made the planet too cold for them to survive.
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Fireball 5

Narrow escape for British family after red-hot sulphuric meteorites rain down on their Shrewsbury garden


Yahoo! News
Wed, 26 Jun 2013 09:51 UTC
Meteorites_1
© Yahoo!News/SWNS
Sarah Marston-Jones shows off some of the inch-wide fragments which landed in her garden.
A mother-of-two told how her young children had a lucky escape - after fragments from a meteor shower rained down in their back garden.

Sarah Marston-Jones was playing outside with Harry, two, and Benjamin, four, when asteroid rocks fell behind her house in Shrewsbury.

The teacher heard a large 'whooshing' sound and a 'cracking' noise as 15 rocks from the meteorite shower blazed through the earth's atmosphere and onto her lawn at 9.30am on Tuesday.

She was forced to rush her two young children off their trampoline to safety indoors as brown and black fragments showered down just inches from where they were playing.

The red-hot rocks, some of which were more than an inch wide, even left a strong burning smell in the family's Shropshire garden.

Comment: Officially, meteorites are not supposed to be red-hot when they hit the ground. So much for experts...

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Fireball 5

Dramatic meteor streaks across San Francisco, California skies

Autumn Johnson
Danville Patch
Sun, 23 Jun 2013 06:32 UTC
Meteor
© Danville Patch
This screen shot captures the last big Bay Area meteor siting to create a stir, the Orionids shower in October.
A dramatic meteor reportedly lit up the skies over the East Bay Saturday night, streaking over Alamo and crossing over the Las Trampas Regional Wilderness toward Moraga, according to one witness.

"It looked like a missile," said a Walnut Creek Patch reader, who said it covered miles in a second in a fast, straight line, with a contrail. "We all jumped up."

Meteors of course are a common occurrence, but sometimes they can create quite the buzz, as did the Orionid earlier this year. Read about how that impacted the Bay Area here.

To report meteor sitings or find out news about sitings, here's a cool blog tracking such things: Lunar Meteorite Hunters.
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Fireball 5

Delhi school students discover new asteroid


Daily News and Analysis, India
Sat, 22 Jun 2013 19:25 UTC
A new asteroid has been discovered by two students from a Delhi school and the find has been confirmed by the international space community, an NGO for popularising space said Saturday. Shourya Chambial and Gaurav Pati from Amity International school in south Delhi's Pushp Vihar made the discovery as part of the All India Asteroid Search Campaign.

"The discovery has been confirmed by the international scientific community and the asteroid has been provisionally named as 2013 LS28," said Science Popularization Association of Communicators and Educators (SPACE) who organized the campaign with International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC).

"We are waiting for it to be placed in the world's official minor body catalogue maintained by International Astronomical Union (Paris)," it added.

According to Space, which has been organizing such camps since 2012 and is providing training to students and amateur astronomers for asteroid hunting, the project was started with an aim to increase the love for science, astronomy and scientific research in Indian students.

"The project has provided opportunities to more than 500 students and amateurs in India to discover asteroids till now, 15 new asteroids discoveries have been discovered," said Space.

Sachin Bahmba, of Space said: "Indian students have beaten students all over the world in asteroid discoveries and India is now looked upon as a leader in bringing revolutionary changes in the field of astronomy and space science education and research."
      Read More...
Fireball 5

Meteorite crashes through roof of Pennsylvania business


CBS Pittsburgh, KDKA
Fri, 21 Jun 2013 22:12 UTC
Meteorite
© KDKA
The mysterious rock.
Mercer, Pennsylvania - There is a mystery surrounding a strange-looking rock that came crashing through the ceiling of a Mercer County business.

It happened sometime late Thursday night or early Friday morning. Employees of the business discovered the shiny, sharp-looking object inside their warehouse Friday morning.

They also found an eight-inch by eight-inch hole in the building's 30-foot high, steel roof where the object came into the building.

The object left a nice dent in the building's cement floor where it landed, too. The owner of the company says he believes the rock could be a meteorite.

However, there's been no official word as to exactly what the object is.
Meteorite_1
© KDKA
The dent in the floor.
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Fireball 2

33 pound meteorite found in Minnesota corn field


youtube.com
Tue, 18 Jun 2013 08:24 UTC

An Arlington Minnesota couple discovered a strange rock in one of their corn fields.

Source: KSTP TV Twin Cities

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